THE REMOTE SENSING TUTORIAL

OVERVIEW AND USE OF THIS TUTORIAL (CONTINUED)

As this Overview continues, we
presume that you may want to get a general picture of satellite activity between
1995 (near the end of the time in the satellite bar graph shown on the previous
page) and 2005, which highlights the present and future plans for remote sensing
systems. This graph gives a summary of many of the satellites, both governmental
and commercial, scheduled for that time period (more details in Section 21 and
several of the systems developed by the Europeans, Japan, India, Russia,
Ukraine, and China-Brazil are described on page 23 of
the Introduction).

This list is impressive. The best
known of the active earth-observing commercial, or quasi-commercial, satellites
are SPOT, IRS, Quickbird, IKONOS, and Orbview. Another way to obtain two vital
particulars about some of these satellites is to examine a plot that shows
maximum resolution and orbital swath widths:

A Website that lists nearly all
satellites currently tasked for earth observations is Remote Sensing Platforms and
Sensors, maintained in the United Kingdom. Additional details on some of
these satellites is given on the Website maintained by Ames Research Center
(ARC). Of the group in the graph above, only ALOS (Advanced Land Oberving
Satellite), built by the Japanese, has yet to be launched. You can check out its
complement of sensors and status at their NASDA ALOS Home Page.

Even as privately-funded satellites
are now orbiting the Earth (see below), many remote sensing operations are still
very much government-driven (U.S. and International) when it comes to gathering
information for the public good. Thus scientists, especially the academicians,
and personnel in national agencies are charged with monitoring the Earth's
natural status, managing its land use and other resources, and looking beyond to
the heavens. These people are constantly relying on a variety of satellites to
conduct research, glean information pertaining to interpreting and predicting
the environment, and devising new applications. Thus has developed a massive
U.S. and multi-national program to study what is called the "Earth System", in a
vast project known as the Earth Science Enterprise (see all of Section 16).

The "kick-off" to this endeavor,
which will bring together thousands of investigators from many countries through
at least the first decade of the 21st century, was the launch of Terra in late
1999. This spacecraft mounts 5 sophisticated sensor packages - ASTER, CERES,
MISR, MODIS, and MOPITT - all looking simultaneously at the Earth's land,
oceans, botanical/organic forms , and climate to gain an integrated picture (the
Earth System) of its environmental functions. The marvelous data sets, expressed
as images, are on pages 16-9
and 16-10, if you want a preview of Terra's continuing accomplishments. The
companion satellite, Aqua, launched in 2002, is described on page
16-10a. For the moment, we will entice you with just one image, a MODIS view
of the Middle East and Egypt where, as this is written, so much turmoil is
threatening hopes for a meaningful peace between the Arab nations and Israel.

The meteorological satellites
operated by NOAA also produce wide field imagery. The latest in the
polar-orbiting series, NOAA-17, launched on June 24, 2002 produced, as its first
image, this scene that covers some of the same regions shown in the MODIS
image.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has
launched two multisensor spacecraft, ERS-1 (1991) and ERS-2 (1995). The ATSR
(Along Track Scanning Radiometer) produced this image of the western part of
Africa (Senegal) in which the outline of a circular crater is seen in the
tropical forest (green)

The ERS-2 radar produced this
colorized image of part of Slovenia:

In late 2001 the European Space
Agency launched (from near the equator in India) its first environmental
"micro-satellite", Proba, which weighed just 100 kg. Operating from a 600 km
orbit, its principal instrument, CHRIS (Compact High Resolution Imaging
Spectrometer) produces color images covering 18.5 km on a side at 18 m
resolution. With 200 narrow bandwidth bands, this experimental satellite hosts
one of the first of the new generation of hyperspectral (narrow band)
sensors. Proba also has an imager, HRC, that yields black and white images at 8
m resolution. Here is one of the first CHRIS images, of Brugge, Belgium, in
winter:

More familiar to American viewers
is this Proba natural color image of San Francisco:

ESA followed up with the launch of
its Envisat on February 28, 2002. With a swath width intermediate between
OrbImage and Proba, namely 690 miles (1100 km), this satellite is designed to
conduct primarily marine and atmospheric studies, as well as monitoring
vegetation. Although its resolution - 300 m - is much less than, say, the IKONOS
system, it has 15 individual spectral bands between 390 and 1040 nanometers,
whose band widths allow almost continuous coverage of wavelength intervals in
the Visible-Near IR segment of the spectrum. Its two principal sensors are MERIS
(Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer) and ASAR, a radar unit. More about this
satellite can be found at ESA's Envisat
Internet site. Below is part of a MERIS image showing the entire island of
Sicily in approximate natural color.

Beneath that is a full MERIS image
(smaller scale; much wider area of coverage) of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and
Portugal), southern France, and Morocco in Africa.

Envisat also carries 9 other
instruments including the above-mentioned Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar
(ASAR). Other ASAR images are shown on Page
14-14. Below is an ASAR view of the Russian city of Dzerskinsk on the Volga
River.

The commercialization of
space imagery is currently the "hottest item" going in the remote sensing field,
or perhaps we can now say "business". The chief "selling point" for some systems
is the high resolution their satellites provide. The chart below lists by
country nearly all the active and planned land/sea observing satellites through
2002 that are either privately owned or operated by governments as a source of
cost-offsetting income:

The breakthrough in bringing the
resolution of satellite imagery into the range of aerial photography occurred in
the late 1980s. When the Russians began to sell high resolution imagery on the
open international market, this led to a reassessment by the U.S. and other
countries of their policy to hold NASA and other countries and organizations
that make their remote sensing data public to limits around 15-20 meters. The
SPIN-2 satellite, with its KR-1000 camera capable of 2 m images, began flooding
the market in the early 1990s with views such as this:

Now, commercial firms can release 1
meter resolution imagery, giving detail approaching "spy satellite" status. Just
how powerful this improvement in resolution can be is visualized in this next
illustration which shows the progressive increase in information going from 30 m
(Landsat 4 TM) to 1 m (Orbview-1pan) using the same scene for comparison:

The advent of such high resolution
civilian remote sensors has moved remote sensing close to the capabilities once
reserved exclusively for military surveillance systems (see Page Intro
26e). Over the years, military and intelligence monitoring of sensitive
targets from air and space has consumed much more resources (i.e., currencies)
than civilian programs. Spy satellites, either deactivated now or in current
operation, have had a significant, but seemingly indirect, impact to civilian
earth- and space-observing systems. Their principal contribution, or driving
force, has been development of technologies (much directed towards high
resolution) that, years later, have been declassified to an extent that civilian
systems could incorporate some of the capabilities (these developments were
often accomplished independently by NASA and other space agencies but until
recently governments prohibited their use in these systems.

The first major company to enter
the marketplace with quality imagery is SPOT-Image (Systeme Probatoire
d'Observation de la Terre), which is associated with CNES (Centre National
dEtudes Spatiale). (Click here or here to examine two
versions of SPOT's Internet home site.) This series of satellites has been
launched on Ariane rockets from a base in French Guiana (northern South
America). The headquarters and control center is in Toulouse, France. Formed in
1982, the organization has launched SPOT systems in 1986 (SPOT-1), 1990 (2),
1993 (3), 1998 (4), and, on May 3, 2002, SPOT-5. More on this program, including
background on the sensors, on how SPOT produces stereo image pairs, and on
applications, is found page 3-2.
For now, we will show three images made by SPOT. The first shows the Rhone
Valley in southern France where it enters the Mediterranean Sea, rendered in the
SPOT multispectral mode (false color) at 20 meter resolution; the area covered
is 50 x 50 kilometers.

Next is a 10 meter panchromatic
image from SPOT-4 covering a part of Las Vegas, Nevada, one of the fastest
growing cities in America.

This image is the first made by
SPOT-5 (launched on May 3, 2002), showing the port of Eleusis in Greece, imaged
at 2.5 m by the new HRG (High Resolution Geometric camera), which puts
SPOT-Image in direct competition with other, newer companies that operate high
resolution systems.

Another SPOT-5 image, in color and
at 5 meter resolution, displays part of the Old Town of Stockholm, Sweden:

The panchromatic cameras on the
SPOTs can be pointed off nadir to provide image pairs that are very effective in
stereo viewing, as described on page 11-9.

SPOT is one of many higher
resolution satellites that can, if clouds are few, provide useful imagery of the
effects of disasters. The SPOT-2 image below was taken in October of 1986, less
than five months after the nuclear power plant explosion at Chernobyl in the
Ukraine. Visible is the extensive damage around Reactor 4:

One of the pioneers in commercial
satellites is the Space Imaging Company (Denver, with offices now in Europe and
Asia) (Web site: Space Imaging) The
first in its IKONOS series failed during launch in April of 1999. The second
IKONOS satellite was launched in September 1999 and has been operating
successfully. Here is a panchromatic image of a part of downtown Washington,
D.C., which can be further processed to attain 1 meter resolution. This image
shows the Mall, the Ellipse, the White House, the Washington Monument, and many
government and private buildings. But at the scale shown, individual automobiles
are not resolved.

However, enlargement of a small
part of the above IKONOS image shows the now realized potential of satellite
imagery to disclose features, such as cars, approaching the full resolution of 1
meter. The circular building is the Hirshhorn Museum; the National Air and Space
Museum and across the street, the building that once housed NASA, also appear.

Just outside the famed Washington
"Beltway", in Greenbelt, MD, is the complex of buildings set in the forests of
the Dept. of Agriculture's BARC (a 10000 acre experimental station) which is the
home of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) - which includes Code 935, the
Information Sciences Branch, the original sponsor of this Tutorial. Here is GSFC
as seen at 4 meter resolution by the IKONOS high resolution camera. The two
buildings in the lower right are the home of the Earth Observations program and
the Terra-EOS spacecraft personnel. Goddard is a lead center in Earth
Observations, Meteorology, and Astronomy

Goddard's chief "competitor" in
remote sensing, in particular radar and infrared, is the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California (shown below). JPL is also heavily
involved in Solar System exploration and, to a lesser extent, certain aspects of
Astronomy.

The ultimate in civilian remote
sensing, for the present, is to achieve a resolution capable of seeing
individual people from high orbital altitudes. IKONOS has achieved that - in
this view of the famed Tiananmen Square in central Beijing, the scattered dots
are actually native and foreign tourists moving about this heart of the capital
city of China.

Another American firm, Space
Imaging, Inc. has been a distributor for IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) Satellite
imagery. With both panchromatic and multispectral sensors, IRS can produce color
images with 4 meter resolution. This example of Kobe, Japan (some months after
an earthquake there) shows the detail available with that system (disregard the
yellow squares; these insets will not enlarge):

Another such recent high resolution
commercial satellite is QuickBird 2, built by Ball Bros. and operated by Digital Globe (formerly known as
EarthWatch), launched on October 18, 2001 to an orbit at 280 km. Its color
imagery (an example from the Antarctic is shown on page 7-3)
can achieve a resolution of 2.4 m (9 ft). Its black and white imagery attains a
resolution of 0.65 m (2 ft). To set the stage for several Quickbird examples
from southeast Asia, we will first look three lower resolution scenes, the first
at a wide angle scene made by the MODIS sensor on Terra which covers most of
Vietnam, Cambodia (note Mekong River), Thailand, and part of Malaysia; the
greens denote the thick jungles that were such a difficult terrain in which to
fight during the Vietnam War but observe that much of Thailand has been
deforested (browns):

From this regional view, we will
zero in on one of the great cities of Asia, Bangkok, in central Thailand. As a
start let's look at an older photo taken from space by an astronaut. On the
whole, it is not sharp or well color-balanced and rather dark. Until the last
decade, astronaut photography was hit and miss, with many like the one below.
Some pictures were excellent; most were tantallizing but unsatisfactory. Part of
the problem was the inability to remove haze or atmospheric moisture. (See
Section 12 on Astronaut Photography for more details.)

From this next image, made by
Terra's ASTER, you will like concur that this type of image is superior to the
above astronaut photo in capturing information about Bangkok.

To further appreciate the value
of high resolution space imagery, this next image (2 meter resolution) comes
from the KVR-1000 photographic camera operating from the Russian SPIN-2
satellite (the photos taken are developed onboard, scanned digitally, and then
sent as signals to a ground facility in southern Russia) The image covers part
of central Bangkok:

The next pair of images, made by
QuickBird, show a high resolution (4 meters) on top and then a very high
resolution (1 meter) view of the city that contains the famed Royal Palace in
Bangkok. Try to fit the bottom image into the top one:

As a related aside, the writer
(NMS) had the privilege of being given a tour of this fabulous palace by a
member of the Royal Family when I was part of a two-man mission to Bangkok in
1975 to participate in a Symposium sponsored by the Thais that featured the uses
of the ERTS-1 (Landsat-1) satellite. Here is just one of the numerous photos I
took of this Palace:

Just as we have seen with the
IKONOS high resolution color imagery, Quickbird too produces stunning scenes.
Compare the Quickbird scene of downtown San Francisco shown here with an almost
identical coverage provided by IKONOS near the bottom of Page 6-9

And, consider this superb
Quickbird-2 image of the Great Pyramid of Giza, southwest of Cairo. This
imposing structure dates around 2600 B.C.

Quickbird, like IKONOS, can under
proper circumstances actually show people on the ground. This image was taken on
April 6, 2005, just four days after the death of the beloved Pope John Paul II.
It shows the vast elliptical open area (oddly, known as St. Peter's Square)
facing St. Peters Basilica. On the right (east) side is the Via della
Conciliazone, the broad street leading to the Vatican. You can see (scroll to
the right) the roadway filled with a few of the three million who waited long
areas to enter the basilica and view the Pope at rest.

A third American company, Orbital
Imaging Corp., Dulles, VA (OrbImage) has
now launched OrbView-1, OrbView-2, and OrbView-3. This last satellite was placed
in orbit by having its rocket booster dropped from an airplane and then ignited
(this mode, launch from a ground rocket, and launch from the Space Shuttle are
the principal methods used to insert satellites in Earth-circling orbits). This
diagram shows the steps in this procedure:

Here is an example of an OrbView-2
image (2800 km wide), in near true color, that embraces a wide area of Egypt,
the Arabian Peninsula, and western Iran; Israel is in the top left center and
Iraq is in the top right center.

Speaking of Israel, that country
launched (from facilities in Russia) in December 5, 2000 its first commercial
satellite dedicated to high resolution Earth observations. ImageSat
International (ISI), established in 1997 and working with Israel Aircraft
Industries and other companies, is now selling 1.8 meter (Standard) and 1.0
meter (Over Sampled) resolution panchromatic imagery from its EROS A1;
this view of Izmir, Turkey is an example:

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Another EROS A1 image of special
interest is this view of the soccer stadium in Seoul, Korea which was one of
several venues for the World Cup of Soccer matches in 2002:

A feature of the EROS A1 imagery is
that stereo pairs are acquired. ImageSat had planned a follow-up EROS A2 but
"scrubbed" this mission when the market for just panchromatic imagery proved a
bit weak. They have now moved into the EROS B series which will have a 0.8 meter
panchromatic sensor and a related system that will be multispectral. Launch of
the first satellite will be in 2003, followed by others that will provide
widespread and timely coverage.

Radar images made from orbiting
spacecraft are also available for purchase. One of the earliest systems is
Radarsat, launched in November 1994 and operated by the Canadian
Space Agency . The commercial unit is RadarsatInternational (RSI). Radarsat
utilizes the C-Band by itself to make its imagery. Below is an example of a
Radarsat image; others are found on . The scene
shows the Dead Sea south of the Jordan River.

All these types of superior
resolution satellites have both civilian and military applications. To
illustrate what military surveillance can do, we look at two images now. The
first involves aircraft reconnaissance over Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis:

Now, commercial systems can release
1 meter resolution imagery, giving detail approaching "spy satellite" status.
But for now, as an example of what civilian systems can do in reporting on a
military system, we show here the image of the U.S. Navy EP-3 Reconnaissance
aircraft on Hainan Island off the China coast where it was forced to make an
emergency landing in late April, 2001 after a partial collision with a Chinese
Jet fighter. The image was produced by Space Imaging Corp. using IKONOS 2
(altitude 680 km [about 420 miles]).

The third example shows an image of
an Iraqi military facility during the 1991 Gulf War, using an optical scanning
sensor on a KH-11 satellite:

Another use is monitoring before
and after effects of bombing during a war. The second Iraq war was well covered
by satellite monitoring. Here is a MODIS image of Baghdad and surrounding region
in early April of 2003, showing the oil fires set as Coalition troops stormed
into the city:

One of the SPOT-5 scenes has become
very timely, indeed, as it shows the capital, Baghdad before it was attacked
from the air. Below is a false color image of this city, cut into two halves by
the Tigris River. A general map of Baghdad is reproduced beneath it:

Although it has undoubtedly slowed
down some of the viewers of this Tutorial who have minimal loading rates, we
decided to show much of Baghdad in the high resolution (2 meters) image produced
by Quickbird-2 (see below) as an example of the details available to both the
military and the public during the war with Iraq in Spring of 2003. Scroll to
see the full extent; use the above map to local key features:

As war between the U.S., Britain,
and other Coalition forces began with Iraq on March 19, 2003, both military and
civilian (commercial) satellites with high resolution were daily observing much
of that country with emphasis on places where weapons of mass destruction may be
located. One group of prime targets are the many palaces of Saddam Hussein. One
of these palaces is located in a bend of the Tigris River in the lower left part
of this SPOT-5 panchromatic image:

The palace used for ceremonial and
diplomatic activities is the (Old) Republican Palace on the Tigris further south
than the above SPOT image. Here is an IKONOS satellite (see below) high
resolution view of this complex:

And still another walled palace -
this the principal one used by Saddam Hussein - adjacent to an artificial lake,
again imaged by IKONOS; this area is just left of bottom center in the natural
color IKONOS image - look for the lake pattern:

These palaces, along with
government and military buildings and facilities, have been prime targets during
the cruise missile and aircraft bomb attacks from the outset of the war. Below
is a IKONOS-2 natural color image (resolution = 0.9 meter) of central Baghdad
acquired on April 1, 2003 that shows smoke plumes from bombardment during the
previous night. Referring to the very large Quickbird image above, see if you
can determine the target buildings involved.

At about the same time, EOS's ASTER
sensor acquired this false color image of the greater Baghdad area, including
the International Airport, visible between two smoke plumes (most of the smoke
in this scene results from deliberate burning of oil ponds in trenches around
the city by Iraqi defenders).

Of course, this war spread out over
most of Iraq, so a full country view is in order. Below is part of an OrbView-2
image (see next paragraph and below) that shows this nation in its totality.
Baghdad is located where a blackpatch represents the many oil fires burning on
March 28, 2003.

Satellite imagery can sometimes be
used to make a political statement. This is evident in this DMSP (Defense
Meteorological Satellite Program) nighttime image of parts of China, Japan, and
Korea. The white tones correspond to well-lit cities. The southern half of
Korea, namely South Korea, is largely well-illuminated, a sign of a high level
of prosperity. By contrast, North Korea is almost dark. Yet this is the "rogue"
nation, which keeps its citizens in the dark, that has continuously threatened
its neighbors and much of the world with its limited but dangerous nuclear
capability. This is a classic example of an economically weak nation using its
military power to achieve political gains

Now, we consider two other examples
of use of high resolution imagery that have both political and humanitarian
overtones: Each illustrates the powerful use of these higher resolution
satellites is in rapid monitoring of an area subjected to a human-caused or
natural disaster.

The worst manmade catastrophe in
American history took place on September 11, 2001 (now known simply as "9/11")
when Al-Quaeda terrorists attacked New York City, the Pentagon outside
Washington, and an aborted attack on the U.S. Capitol that ended in
Pennsylvania. This was dramatically demonstrated by the imaging within two days
of Lower Manhattan in New York City when the twin towers of the World Trade
Center were destroyed by those terrorists using highjacked U.S. commercial
airliners as "rockets" loaded with explosive jet fuel. The photo below has come
to symbolize the worst moments before the WTC twin towers failed and collapsed
to the ground:

The first space image of this
catastrophe below was taken by the French SPOT-3 satellite just 3 hours after
the first impact.

IKONOS-2 took the image below of
Lower Manhattan nearly two years after 9/11, in which the changes around the
"ground zero" area of the World Trade Center are evident. Even higher resolution
IKONOS-2 images are presented on page
4-2.

Horrific as the 9/11 attacks
against America have proved to be, they pale in comparison to the worst natural
disaster to beset mankind in the last 100+ years. In the morning of December 26,
2004 a submarine earthquake of magnitude 9.3 took place of the northwest type of
Sumatra in Indonesia. Movement of the ocean floor was upwards which, in turn,
heaved the column of overlying water into a huge mound at the surface. This
generated outgoing waves, called tsunamis, that raced as speed up to 800
km/hr (500 mph) over the western Pacific and Indian oceans. When such waves
reach shallow waters nearshore they transform into walls of onrushing waters up
to 30-40 meters high and crash into beaches and inland for 100s of meters. This
madly swirling water destroys buildings and drowns or sweeps living creatures
caught in the maelstrom. This devastating tsunami sequence affect Sumatra,
Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, and as far away as Somalia in Africa. As of this
writing (December 29, 2004) the death toll may have exceeded 300000 people (many
missing will never be found) - the worst such disaster in modern times. By sheer
chance, the Quickbird satellite (see below), captured a view of a coastal town
in Thailand that had been inundated by the initial tsunami and is about to be
struck again by a later, smaller tsunami disturbance:

More on this \ disaster, as seen
from space, is included on page page
3-7.

These diverse images shown above
are symbolic of the new benefits coming from the "great leap forward" in remote
sensing, that is, the emergence in the 21st Century of private, commercial
satellite operations rather than continued dependence on NASA/NOAA, space
agencies in other countries, and the military to provide useful imagery
of the planet we live and work on.

Another trend in satellites has
been to put the same or complementary sensors on a group of satellites that work
together to accomplish their mission. In some instances, this configuration is
called "formation flying", in that several satellites are located or spaced in
orbit such as to look at the Earth under different conditions (e.g., time of
day) or with a higher frequency of coverage. In March, 2003, the first of a
planned 4 ALSat satellites was launched successfully; the other three will
follow later in the year. When all are operating, they will allow any spot on
Earth to be covered at least once in a 24-hour period (assuming suitable cloud
cover conditions). With wide area coverage at moderate resolutions (34 m under
one mode), this will allow them to function as disaster monitoring
systems. A fuller description of their capability is given on page I-23.
Here is an ALSat-1 image of a 600 km wide scene extending from the Great Valley
of California across southern Nevada into Utah:

When the word "NASA" is presented
to the "citizen in the street", the first image that usually comes to mind today
is that of the Space Transport System (STS), more commonly known as the Space
Shuttle. Shown here as a mission is launched, the Shuttle, at the heart of
America's space program in the last 25 years (although at present "grounded"
following the Columbia disaster) has been involved in many scientific and
technological projects, some of which are directly involved in remote sensing
applications.

Although for the past ten years or
so the centerpiece of the NASA program, along with participation by other
nations, has been the International Space Station (ISS), it may seem as
though (in the year 2003) this massive effort to put another permanent facility
(the Russian MIR was first) is given little attention in this Tutorial. This is
not quite the case: astronaut photography is conducted from ISS and in time
various remote sensors will be installed and tested aboard this space "home".
For now, we will only allude to this potential by showing two pictures of ISS
taken by astronauts on Space Shuttle mission 110 in June of 2002. As more remote
sensing output is produced during future missions, examples will be added to
this Remote Sensing Tutorial (RST).

Currently, and probably for the
rest of 2003, the ISS is operating at a minimal level owing to the inability to
bring new components to its continuing construction using the Space Shuttle. The
Shuttle appears to be grounded indefinitely as a result of the Columbia
disaster. When the Shuttle returns to space, it is planned to monitor it in
flight from above for evidence of damage or other trouble. Various
imaging satellites, mainly military, can image it when it is in their view.
Several images of Columbia were obtained just days before the accident by
satellites, once again illustrating the great versatility and value of remote
sensing observations from space. Here is one of the images released during the
investigation phase:

Many more satellites and space
probes for both Earth and Astronomical applications are on the drawing boards
for future launches. Some of these systems were described above; others in
Section 21. For those who want the "latest" in space achievements and updates on
launch schedules, we recommend the SpaceFlight Now Web site,
which is updated daily (this one is worth adding to your Favorites list). For a
longer term preview, check this JPL Missions website.

However, since the Columbia
disaster and, frankly, for years before, NASA has been experiencing a form of
malaise that comes from a lack of supported space initiatives and goals
that would carry it solidly into the future. President Kennedy's famed 1961 "Men
to the Moon" speech galvanized the Space Agency, and reached out to all mankind,
into a decade plus of extraordinary activity and accomplishments. But after
Apollo NASA seemed to some to have "lost its way" in searching for adventures
that would keep it active and healthy and would retain the respect of the rest
of the world for U.S. space leadership. Now, on January 14, 2004, President
George W. Bush has stepped forth with his Administration's "Grand Vision" for
NASA's future as a set new goals and a master plan that, if accepted by the
public and funded by Congress, will breath 'new life' into space exploration
that will ultimately reach for the stars even as it promotes more attention to
problems and applications directly pointed to the Earth itself. In his speech,
delivered at NASA Headquarters, he charged the Agency with these tasks: 1) use a
restored Space Shuttle program to complete the International Space Station by
2010; 2) retire the Shuttle by 2010 and replace it with the Crew Exploration
Vehicle (using aspects of the Apollo launch systems) with a first manned flight
in 2014; 3) by 2015 and beyond establish a manned base on the Moon; 4) use it as
a jumping-off point (lower energy requriements for propulsion) to send humans to
Mars (no date set but after 2020); and 5) look beyond at the challenges of
journeying to the outer planets and exploring for life elsewhere in the
Universe. These are depicted in the graph below (keeping in mind this is a
generalized "road map" that will certainly change significantly as the programs
ensue).

A hallmark of this vision is that
it begins with cautious, conservative steps designed to develop basic equiment
and gather relevant experience before making any heavy commitments to actually
sending astronauts (likely, from many nations, especially those that join in the
program through sharing funding) into the beyond. Robotic exploration dominates
the first phases. Nevertheless, skeptics have already challenged this
(grandiose?) effort (largely from its costs, despite those being spread out over
decades, and from the viewpoint that unmanned probes can do many of these tasks
at much lower costs). We are reminded to gauge the space program in a proper
perspective - the costs hover around 1% of the national budget, a small price
for the greatest exploration efforts by the human race. Time will tell which of
the President's challenges are embarked on and lead to success. But, one prime
goal of this Tutorial is to convince you, its reader, of the exceptional
achievements of NASA's and the world's space programs, their value to peoples'
lives, and the motivation for continued - even expanded - exploration, Januslike
looking inwards at Earth and outwards to the farthest reaches of the Universe
through mastery of operating in Space.

President Bush's speech has
appeared as a video movie at several sites. You may still find it at the NASA Home Page. Although critics
have sniped at the scope and details - and questioned where the funding will
come from - the likelihood of some kind of program with elements of Bush's
proposal is high. The first hurdle is to return men and women to Space.

Historians may eventually rate
September 28, 2004 as a prime "red letter day" in the saga of Man's ventures
into space. On this day in mid-morning high above the Mojave Desert of
California, the first civilian space vehicle and civilian pilot crossed the
threshold into outer space (arbitrarily set at 100 km, or 62.5 miles above
Earth's surface, well beyond the limits of atmosphere). SpaceShipOne was funded
by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microscoft, designed by Burt Rutan (of Voyager fame
- a trip around the world on one tank of gas), built by Scaled Composites, and
guided by veteran pilot, Michael Melvill, 62, (who also piloted the June 21
suborbital flight that intentionally did not reach the critical altitude)
associated with efforts to develop privately-funded space vehicles, for three
decades. The incentive was primarily to simply accomplish this great feat and
advance the steps towards civilians - and tourists - into space routinely.
Another driver was to win the Ansari X-Prise, $10 million to the first group
that launches pilot and passengers into outer space twice in two weeks. The June
2004 mission is just short of that step, being the first to allow one person to
move pass the boundary to outer space. The method, shown in a diagram below,
carries the manned rocket on the back of a specially built plane, the White
Knight, up to about 43000 ft, at which altitude the space rocket is pushed free,
fires its rocket, and moves straight up to about 335000 feet, just above the 100
km height. The flight was not trouble-free, glitches in stabilization resulting
from an instrument failure, causing roll, occurred at high altitude but the
pilot was able to move to switch to a backup system and regain control. Shown
below are five images documenting this great feat: 1) the White Knight, with
SpaceShipOne on top, 2) the flight profile, 3) SpaceShipOne in launch mode, 4)
the space rocket about to land around 8:15 PDT, and 5) the new astronaut, Mike
Melvill:

To win the Ansari XPrize ($10
million dollars), SpaceShipOne had to break the space frontier barrier within
two weeks of this first flight. Just 5 days later, on Monday, October 4, 2004 -
now an historic day in the conquest of space - the rocket plane successfully
reached a height of 63.8 miles (337,600 ft). The pilot was Brian Binnie. For
safety reasons, in neither Melvill's nor Binnie's flights were there two
passengers but their equivalent weights in sand bags, etc. were acceoted as
stand-ins. Thus, the X Prize has now been claimed and will be awarded in
November, in St. Louis (chosen as a tribute to Chas. Lindbergh's famed single
engine plane - the Spirit of St. Louis). Both men have been formally honored by
being named the first truly civilian "astronauts".

More tests will follow to iron out
the problems still in need of fine-tuning. But, the significance of this
achievement cannot be underestimated! For a cost of just under $30 million,
versus the hundreds of $millions it costs to send up a Shuttle mission,
individual men, not governments, have started the inevitable process of guiding
themselves into the vastness of space. Years will pass before enough power and
proper design will lead to orbital flights, but the key first step has now
occurred. If enough commercial value is found in doing this by the world's
citizenry, the long term makeup of the human space program may forever be
changed. Accidents will likely happen - the Columbia disaster by all odds will
be repeated in some ways - but the spirit of adventure into the Universe will
move generations to come into the heavens. Yet we must not forget what NASA and
other space agencies have contributed to this noble endeavor - the maxim "We
stand on the shoulders of Giants." still rings true.

As we approach the close to this
Overview (but don't neglect to examine the credits and biographies below), we
will now offer you a chance to test your innate knowledge and reasoning skills
about some general ideas involved in scene interpretation using remote sensing
products. Following a suggestion by a colleague, we have devised an optional
"Get Acquainted" Quiz using a variety of remote sensing products that relate to
just one part of the United States. We invite (urge) you to click here
to access the Quiz page that displays the images and tests your experience and
common sense through 10 leading questions. When done, either return to the
Overview using the Back button or click as advised to the Introduction.

So, now on to the Tutorial itself.
Start by returning to the Table of Contents on the Title Page, which you can
access by clicking on either the Foreword or What's New buttons below, or
through the proper sequence of steps hitting your browser's back button.

(In keeping with scientific
convention and the intended worldwide use of this Tutorial, we normally specify
measurements in metric system units (si), especially those for the
electromagnetic spectrum and other units in physics. We will place English unit
equivalents in parentheses where appropriate or to clarify, particularly when
dealing with geographic parameters.)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This Tutorial is the outgrowth of a suggestion by
NICHOLAS M. SHORT, JR., who at the time was a computer scientist at
Goddard's Code 935 (the first sponsor). He conceived the idea in part as an
alternative source of information on remote sensing to the writer's (NMS)
Landsat Tutorial Workbook (now out-of-print) for which requests continued
over the years to funnel through him, as a consequence of his name recognition
(and confusion as to location).

Since its inception, the following
have served as Webmasters who also assisted in putting the Tutorial into proper
"html" format: Dr. John Robinson; Mr. William Dickinson, Jr.; Mrs. Nanette
Fekete; Ms. Stephanie Richardson; Mr. David Hudgins; Mr. John Bolton. Their
help in this capacity is gratefully recognized by the Primary Writer, N.M.
Short, Sr.

We also thank Mr. Robert
Rush of Numidia, PA for his technical assistance to the principal writer in
preparing the inputs to the Web Site. Mr. Rush has over ten years of experience
in the computer technology field. He currently operates Webmaster Choice, an international
company providing website design and hosting. This input, done at the writer's
computer, was then ably tailored for the Net by workers at NASA-Goddard Space
Flight Center and Global Scientific and Technology, Inc. (GSTI).

In July of 2002, we were most
fortunate in getting one of our Web site readers to volunteer to proofread the
text portion of the Tutorial for "typos" and other non-technical errors. We are
grateful to Mr. Joe Lane, of Brooklyn, NY for performing this vital
service. Mr. Lane, was one of the original members of the "Swing n Sway with
Sammy Kaye" Big Band, well known in the mid 20th Century; this band today (even
after its leader passed away) still plays professional concerts, mostly in the
northeast U.S.

The following are synoptic
biographies of the principal author - also referred to in various Sections as
the "writer" or "(NMS)" - of the Remote Sensing Tutorial and of the major topic
contributors, plus listings of others involved in the preparation of this
Tutorial:

PRIMARY WRITER

Nicholas Martin Short, a native of St. Louis, MO, is a
geologist who received degrees in that field from St. Louis University (B.S.,
1951), Washington University (M.A., 1954), and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (Ph.D., 1958); he also spent a year in graduate studies in the
geosciences at The Pennsylvania State University. In his early post-graduate
career, he worked for Gulf Research & Development Co., Pittsburgh, PA
(Wyoming Oil project), the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, California
(Underground Nuclear Explosions; Plowshare Program), and the University of
Houston (Associate Professor of Geochemistry). During the 1960s he specialized
in the effects of underground nuclear explosions and asteroidal impacts on rocks
(helping to establish the new field of Shock Metamorphism), and was one of the
original Principal Investigators of the Apollo 11 and 12 moon rocks. He joined
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in 1969 as one of the first discipline
specialists supporting the Landsat program and related remote sensing projects.
Over the next 19 years, he authored Planetary Geology, The Landsat
Tutorial Workbook, and The HCMM Anthology and co-authored Volcanic
Landforms and Surface Features, Mission to Earth: Landsat Views the
World, and Geomorphology from Space, along with 85 article-length
publications dealing mainly with geological topics. After retiring from NASA in
1988, Dr. Short taught remote sensing at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania
until 1992. From 1992 to 1994 he was a national Sigma Xi lecturer. He began work
on the Remote Sensing Tutorial in 1995.

In December of 2002, the writer was
asked to contribute a lengthy article on his experiences in becoming a remote
sensing specialist (summarizing most of his professional career) to a new Web
site called The Online Journal of Space Communication, accessed over the
Web at this URL address. For those
interested, the article, which will be part of the 3rd issue this Journal, is
entitled MEMOIRS OF A RETOOLED
GEOSCIENTIST.

GUEST WRITERS & CONSULTANTS

Paul Lowman is a geologist, with
degrees from Rutgers and the University of Colorado. He was hired by NASA in
1959, the first geologist to be employed by the agency. He took part in the
Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab programs as principal investigator for
terrain photography. He was Principal Investigator for a Shuttle Imaging Radar
Experiment, covering the Canadian Shield, in 1984. His current work is
concentrated on a digital map of global tectonic activity, published (Lowman et
al., in the Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 47, p. 428-437, 1999). His is
also completing a book "Exploring Space, Exploring Earth: the Impact of Space
Flight on Geology and Geophysics," for Cambridge University Press.

Dr. Madry received his Ph.D. in
Anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1986,
specializing in the applications of remote sensing and GIS for cultural studies.
He has been a Senior Project Manager at the Institute for Technology
Development's Space Remote Sensing Center at the NASA Stennis Space Center, was
the Senior Associate Director of the Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial
Analysis at Rutgers University, and was a member of the Faculty of the
International Space University in Strasbourg, France for over ten years. Dr.
Madry has been involved in teaching and research in remote sensing and GIS
applications for over 15 years, and has conducted a variety of research and
application projects in Europe, Africa, and North America. He has been involved
in projects ranging from European archaeology to Mountain Gorilla habitat
studies in Rwanda and wildlife management in Kenya's National Parks. An
entertaining and engaging speaker, he has given over 125 short courses and
seminars in over 25 countries, including lectures at the Sorbonne. He is
currently the president of Informatics International, Inc., an international
Geomatics consulting firm in Chapel Hill, NC. He also holds an appointment as a
Research Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. He was awarded the prestigious Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Gold Medal in 1997 for his contributions to international space
education.

Dr. Mitchell K. Hobish is
self-employed as a consulting synthesist, specializing in scientific and
technological strategic planning and outreach. Dr. Hobish has worked with
scientists and space agencies world-wide to develop concepts and approaches for
efficient utilization of analytical laboratory methods for space exploration
that also have high spin-off potential for terrestrial use. He is a partner
(with his wife, Janice) in New Realities, LLC, a consulting firm dedicated to
making technical and scientific information accessible to the general public.
Dr. Hobish holds undergraduate degrees in English (with a minor in electrical
engineering) from the University of Rochester, and biology, from Tulane
University. He received his doctorate in biochemistry from the Johns Hopkins
University. Dr. Hobish has performed research in the physicochemical origins of
the genetic code, the origins of chirality in biomolecules, and the
thermodynamics of small molecule binding to biomacromolecules. When not working,
he builds small robots and is an amateur radio operator. He also does volunteer
work for the IEEE and AIAA in the areas of student outreach and education. His
Web page may be viewed here.

Subsequent to a varied history in
NASA, including Project Manager of the Scout launch vehicle, and Director of
Engineering for the Apollo Program, Mr. Stoney began his career in satellite
remote sensing as Director of NASA‚s Earth Observation Program in 1972, the year
that Landsat 1 was launched. His tenure included the launch of Landsats 2 and 3,
the definition and development of the Thematic Mapper, the development of NOAA's
TIROS, and GEOS satellites and sensors, and the management of the Large Area
Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE) and the Application Research programs which
initiated the development of multispectral analysis technologies. Since leaving
NASA he has worked for RCA and GE supporting the development of the EOS program
and for MITRE and now Mitretek supporting the current and future Landsat
systems. Recently he has been closely involved with the Stennis Science
Commercial Commercial Data Buy Program.

James J. Rosolanka, who recently retired from the USAF, presently works for
AMCOMP Corporation as a Senior Systems Engineer. While in the USAF, he worked in
various facets of the military space field. He began at the Satellite Test
Center, Sunnyvale Air Force Station, California (now Onizuka Air Force Base) in
1980 supporting spacecraft operations. In 1984, he transferred to Space Systems
Division, Los Angeles Air Force Base where he worked with the Secretary of the
Air Force Special Projects, and then with the Titan IV Launch Vehicle Program
Office. In 1989, he moved to Colorado to support the operational testing of the
Consolidated Space Operations Center (CSOC), Falcon Air Force Base (now
Schriever Air Force Base). In 1994, he transferred back to the Space and Missile
Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, where he served the Defense Support
Program (DSP) office in several key positions before retiring. He currently
works on the Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN).

Mr. Love received his B.S. and M.S.
in Computer Science from the University of Missouri - Rolla. He has experience
designing and developing real-time data acquisition systems deployed on U.S.
Navy Submarines. Mr. Love was also responsible for the development, maintenance,
and support of the Common Data Format (CDF) which is used by the space physics
community to store scientific data sets. More recently, he has been providing
programming support for NASA GSFCs Regional Application Center (RAC) program,
including the development of the Photo Interpretation Tool (PIT) used in
Appendix B of this Tutorial.

Dr. Robinson received his B.S. in
Zoology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, He received his MA and Ph.D.
in Systematics & Ecology from the University of Kansas, Lawrence. After
completing his Ph.D. he worked at the Center for Research. Inc. at the
University of Kansas with some of the first Landsat data. He then worked as a
Biometrician at the Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Since
1976, he has worked for a number of contractors at NASA/Goddard Space Flight
Center. He currently works for Hughes STX Corporation. Over the years, he has
worked with data from a variety of platforms and sensors including Heat Capacity
Mapping Mission (HCMM), ), Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite
(GOES), Landsat, ASAS and AVHRR. Dr. Robinson worked in the Eastern Regional
Remote Sensing and Applications program at Goddard Space Flight Center during
the late 1970's. This program was designed to help transfer remote sensing
technology to state and local governments, and the private sector. He was a
member of a two person team, training members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
in remote sensing when his employer installed the first Landsat ground station
in China.

Dr. Weissel received his BSc
(Hons.) in Geophysics from the University of Sydney (Australia) in 1968, and his
PhD in Marine Geophysics from the University of New South Wales in 1972. Since
then he has worked at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia
University in Palisades, New York, where he is currently a Doherty Senior
Scholar. His research interests focus on the evolution of landscapes and
seascapes, with a particular emphasis on slope failure and landslide hazards.
Application of remote sensing techniques to the detection and mapping of
landslides is an important element of this research. NASA supports Dr. Weissel's
work through its Topography and Surface Change and Solid Earth and Natural
Hazards research programs. The remote sensing glossary was developed to help
students taking Dr. Weissel's courses on remote sensing principles and
applications at Columbia become familar with the ever-expanding terminology of
the discipline.

EDITOR (1998-2000)

Mr. Dickinson received his B.A. in
History from the University of Maryland College Park Campus, specializing in
ancient Roman history and archaeology. He is currently employed by Global
Science and Technology. He has several years of experience designing,
developing, and maintaining websites and has a solid understanding of multiple
computer systems and their relation to the World Wide Web. He has recently
served as Coordinator for the Regional Applications Center (RAC) program in Code
935 at NASA GSFC, and has been the Editor and Webmaster for the Remote Sensing
Tutorial project for the past 3 years.

PUBLICATIONS & WEB SERVICES

Col. Kirkpatrick received his B.S.
from the Air Force Academy in 1974, an MS from Purdue University, and a Ph.D.
from the University of Texas in 1988. His service includes instructorships at
the Air Staff and Command College and the Air War College.

SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS

COORDINATORS

OAO
CorporationOAO - a full service provider of aerospace engineering and
information technology (IT) services, specializing in leading edge technology.
An American success story, OAO Corporation started as a minority-owned small
business in 1973 serving NASA. Today, OAO has offices nationwide and is one of
the fastest growing IT companies in the nation. OAO's customers include many
Fortune 500 companies as well as Federal, state, and local government agencies.
The company's Defense Systems Group began operations in Colorado Springs,
providing a broad range of services to NORAD, U. S. Space Command, Air Force
Space Command, the Joint National Test Facility, and the United States Air Force
Academy. For more information visit the OAO web site at http://www.oao.com/.

Northern
NEF, Inc. (NEF) is a small business firm with primary corporate offices in
Colorado Springs, Colorado. Other offices are located in Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma; Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania; Denver, Colorado; Dayton, Ohio; Ankara,
Turkey; and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Established in 1987, the company has grown
from a start-up in Colorado Springs to an expanding worldwide business.
NOTE: The Next button takes you to the "Get Acquainted Quiz".